“Who indeed!  Oh, they’re a hearty people.  Has Jean got the fur coat she coveted?”

“She hasn’t.  It was a great disappointment, poor child.  She was so excited when she saw them being brought in rich profusion, but when she tried them on all desire to possess one left her:  they became her so ill.  They buried her, somehow.  She said herself she looked like ’a mouse under a divot,’ whatever that may be, and they really did make her look like five out of any six women one meets in the street.  Fur coats are very levelling things.  Later on when I get her to London we’ll see what can be done.  Jean needs careful dressing to bring out that very real but elusive beauty of hers.  I persuaded her in the meantime to get a soft cloth coat made with a skunk collar and cuffs....  She was so funny about under-things.  I wanted her to get some sets of crepe-de-Chine things, but she was adamant.  She didn’t at all approve of them, and said she liked under-things that would boil.  She has always had very dainty things made by herself; Great-aunt Alison taught her to do beautiful fine sewing....  Jean is a delightful person to do things with; she brings such a freshness to everything is never bored, never blase.  I was glad to see her so deeply interested in new clothes.  I confess to having a deep distrust of a woman who is above trying to make herself attractive.  She is an insufferable thing.”

“I quite agree, my dear.  A woman deliberately careless of her appearance is an offence.  But, on the other hand, the opposite can be carried too far.  Look at Mrs. Jowett!”

“Oh, dear Mrs. Jowett, with her lace and her delicate, faded tints; and her tears of sentiment and her marvellous maids!”

“A good woman,” said Mrs. Hope, “but silly.  She fears a draught more than she does the devil.  I’m always reminded of her when I read Weir of Hermiston. She has many points in common with Mrs. Weir—­’a dwaibly body.’  Of the two, I really prefer Mrs. Duff-Whalley. Her great misfortune was being born a woman.  With all that energy and perfect health, that keen brain and the indomitable strain that never knows when it is beaten, she might have done almost anything.  She might have been a Lipton or a Coats, or even gone out and discovered the South Pole, or contested Lloyd George’s Welsh seat in the Conservative interest.  As a woman she is cribbed and cabined.  What she has set herself to do is to force what she calls ‘The County’ to recognise her, and marry off her girl as well as possible.  She has accomplished the first part through sheer perseverance, and I’ve no doubt she will accomplish the second; the girl is pretty and well dowered.  I have a liking for the woman, especially if I haven’t seen her for a little.  There is some bite in her conversation.  Mrs. Jowett is a sweet woman, but to me she is like a vacuum cleaner.  When I’ve talked to her for ten minutes my head feels like a cushion that has been cleaned—­a sort of empty, yet swollen feeling.  I never can understand how Mr. Jowett has gone through life with her and kept his reason.  But there’s no doubt men like sweet, sentimental women, and I suppose they are restful in a house....  Shall we have coffee in the drawing-room?  It’s cosier.”